CHAPTER XXI.

HUNTING THE SEWERS.

HIDDEN in the bosoms of the sewers of every Great City lies a world of romance. The secrets of thousands of human beings, with their hopes and aspirations, their defeats and disappointments, are garnered, in the relics of myriad households, whose rubbish is shot through drains, to be imbedded in the accumulated masses at the bottom of the soggy sewerage.

London has two thousand miles of bricked sewers, and the entire metropolis is honey-combed by these effluvious passages.

These sewers are, of course, choked with refuse and swarming with rats and other pestiferous vermin, by night and day, and are pervaded with noxious gases, which, when inhaled, cause almost instantaneous death. The rats grow as big as kittens in the sewers, and will face strong, healthy men, and give them combat--in legions. The rats feed on offal from the butchers' slaughter houses, which is poured into the sewers, and they also subsist on the grain which comes from the breweries, in different parts of the city.

Twenty years ago, the main sewers of London, having their outlets on the river side, were completely open, and it was lawful to enter them to search for valuables, but since then so many people have died of the gases, or have lost themselves in their noxious recesses, that a law was at last passed, by which persons entering the sewers to explore them, unless they were employed as workmen, became amenable to imprisonment, and at present the law is strictly enforced.

[Sidenote: SEWER HUNTERS.]

Formerly, when the spring tides in the Thames began, it was of common occurrence for the waters to dash into the sewers, sweeping everything in their way, and very often engulfing the workmen, or others engaged illegally in searching the sewers; and days after one of these tidal floods had occurred bodies of drowned and disfigured men would be vomited from the mouths of the sewers.

Now, however, this is changed, and hanging iron doors, with hinges, are affixed to the mouths of the sewers, and are so arranged that when the tides are low the iron doors are forced open by the rubbish and wet refuse which is emptied into the Thames, and when the tides rise the volume of water forces the doors back, and the river cannot enter the sewers.

There are two or three hundred men in London, who earn a living by working in the sewers. These men, though there is a law against the practice, search the sewers, night and day, for old iron, rope, metal, money, or whatever is of value to the finder. They are called "Toshers," or "Shore-men," and are, in some things, very like the "mud-larks," who frequent the river sides.

Some of these men are very fortunate at times, and succeed in obtaining good prizes from the black, stinking mud of the sewers. Gold watches, silver milk-jugs, breast-pins, bracelets, and gold rings, are obtained by them. These sewer hunters, however, do not trouble themselves to collect coal, wood, or chips, as is the case with the mud-larks. There are better prizes for them, and accordingly, they do not waste their time on such trifles.

The Sewer-Hunter, before penetrating a sewer, provides himself with a pair of canvas trousers, very thick and coarse, and a pair of old shoes, or high-topped boots--the higher the legs the better. The coat may be of any material, only it must be of heavy fabric, and there are large pockets in the sides, where articles may be crammed at will.

They carry a bag on their backs, these sewer-hunters, and in their hand a pole, seven or eight feet long, on one end of which is fastened a large iron hoe to rake up rubbish.

Whenever they think the ground is unsafe, or treacherous, they test it with the rake, and steady their steps with the staff.

Should a Sewer-Hunter find himself sinking in a quag-mire, he immediately throws out the long pole, armed with the hoe, and seizes the first object in the sewer, to hold himself up. In some places, had the searcher no pole, he would sink, and the more he tried to extricate his person, the deeper he would imbed his body.

Use is made of the pole to rake the mud for iron, copper, or bones, and occasionally the rake turns up the remains of a human being, who may have perished in those fetid cells. Great skill is necessary in the hunter, to know always when the tide leaves and comes, so as to enable him to find articles at certain points.

The brick work in many parts is rotten, especially in old sewers, and there is great risk in traversing the channels, as sometimes, when the sewers are being flooded from the dams erected at stated intervals, the passage is flooded to a height of three feet, very suddenly, and if the Sewer-Hunter be not notified the first intimation of his danger is given by a thundering, rushing sound, and before he can escape the waters are upon him, and he is enveloped by them or hurled down with tremendous force, and swept along for miles in darkness, and filth, and despair, cut off from all human aid, no ear to hear his shouts, and no hand stretched forth to save.

In some places where the arches are unsafe, he will not dare to touch any part of the roof of the sewers, or the sides, fearing that he may be buried beneath the ruins. The main sewers are generally five feet high from floor to ceiling, but the branch sewers are much lower, and it is necessary to crawl on hands and knees to proceed. In the main sewers, there are niches built in the brick walls of some depth, with a raised platform, and the hunters always step into one of those when the sewers are being flooded, to clean them.

[Sidenote: AN UNLAWFUL BUSINESS.]

Rats, unless in great numbers, will not attack a man if he passes them quietly, but if driven to a corner they will fly at the intruder's face and legs in hundreds. A bite from one of these rats will swell a man's face or arms to an enormous size. The men who are employed as "flushers" to clean the sewers wear leather boots, the legs of which come up to the hips, and of thick leather, and when the rats make an attack on these men, they always flash their lanterns, which are fastened to leather belts around their waists, and this frightens the vermin away, as they are not accustomed to light, and will flee from it if not molested. The big leather boots of the "flushers" cannot be bitten through by the rats.

The trenches or water-tanks for the cleansing of the sewers, are chiefly on the south side of the Thames, and as a proof of the great danger incurred by sewer-hunters from these floods of water suddenly let in on them, I am told that when a ladder was put down a sewer from the street some years ago, on which a hod-carrier was descending with a hod of brick, the rush of water from the sluice struck the ladder, and instantly, ladder, hod-carrier, and all, were swept away, and afterward the poor man was found at the mouth of the sewer, all battered, torn, bruised, and dead.

Whenever a Sewer-Hunter passes through a sewer under a street grating, he is compelled to close his lantern, else the reflection of the light through the grating would call the attention of the police, and he would be taken before a magistrate. Dogs are never taken through the sewers, for the same reason, as their barking would be noticed, although they would be an excellent defense against the rats.

Occasionally skeletons of unfortunate cats have been found in the sewers, their bones completely cleared of flesh, and nothing but a little fur remaining. I should pity the cat that strayed into a sewer, as they do occasionally from house-drains and cesspools.

As the Sewer-Hunters go along in the sewers, they often pick money from between the crevices of the brick-work, and now and then a handful of sovereigns have been taken from these crevices. Sometimes a small pick is needed to recover metals or money from the crevices where they are wedged.

One man told me that he found a small leather bag with two hundred sovereigns and some shillings in it, that had no doubt been washed out from a drain. He said that he had often found money, and that he was well satisfied with his luck in general. He had been for twenty years searching the sewers, and had amassed considerable property. He told me his story as follows:

[Sidenote: A RAT STORY.]

"The first night, ye know, that I went into a sewer, I had a pal with me, as is dead now. Steve Williams was his name--God rest his soul. I felt afeered when I went in and got lost two or three times, but Steve allers found me agin by hollering at me. I got the greatest fright that night I ever got in my life. We were somewhere in a sewer in old Smithfield, and there must have been a distillery somewhere there, for when I turned out of the main sewer into a branch one, I saw by the light of the lantern a thick steam beyond me. I was a little ahead of Steve, who had just got a haul of two silver table-knives and a watch chain of goold, and he was looking at the haul he made when I saw the steam a fillin of the sewer. I went along, when I got near it my head begun to get dizzy, and I fell back on my shoulders into the sewer. I got drunk in the steam from the distillery,--that's what ailed me--and it was so sudden like, that I would have lost my life if Steve hadn't been there.

"Well, Steve saved my life agin the same night. We were pretty near the mouth of the sewer on the Thames, near Wapping, where we had a boat to take us off, for in those times the peelers never meddled with us like they does now.

"Well, there was one place very ticklish in the sewer, that Steve had cautioned me about, and this place was all broken and in holes, and it was chuck full of rats. When we came by I was foolish enough to turn the light of my lantern on the broken place in the sewer, and sure enough, there was a reglar colony o' rats in a room--keeping house,--about two thousand of them--with a hall-way and a room gnawed out of the bricks, as large as the room I live in at home. There they were, all stuck together, with their eyes a glarin at me like winkin, and they all in a heap as big as a horse and cart. I never seed such a sight in my life. Steve told me to come on, and I was going, for the rats never said a word all the time, but looked at me and squealed--but just as I was turning around after Steve my foot slipped and I fell, and the lantern dropped into a pool and went out.

"I must have frightened the rats, for there was an awful squealing and scampering--but they didn't all run away, for I found a hundred of them fastened on my hands, legs, face, and body, when I fell. You may be sure I hollowed and yelled, for I wasn't used to these vermin then, and the more I hollowed and beat them, the more they squealed and bit me.

"In a few minutes Steve came running back with his lantern, and seeing I was down and couldn't get up, he drove at them with his pole and killed half a dozen of them, and then they left me and jumped at him. Then we went at it for a couple of minutes, battling for our lives, and when we did beat them off we were bitten all over our bodies. I am sure if it warnt for Steve and his lantern that time, I should have been eaten up by the rats. You see, Sir, they thought when I stumbled and fell that I attacked them, for I found out since that they never begin first if they can help it."